The King's Old Mentor
by coppernite
Summary: After Bowen and Draco's little ruse, Bowen returns to find the Draco didn't eat Kara, and that they might have visitors. Summary is pretty bad, so just read the story...... please? this is a one timer thing, only this, no more.


**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything of Dragon Heart. Just my modification of part of the story.

**Also**: This takes place as the battle after Bowen returns to find Draco perfectly fine after their ruse on one of the villages. It happens that the village was eager to make Kara the sacrifice to the dragon, and Bowen waited for Draco to return, but he didn't. Worried, Bowen had set out to Draco's cave to see if any harm has come of him. On his way, he spots hoof prints from horses nearby. He starts telling off Draco, talking about how he was concerned for the dragons safety, meanwhile Kara has no idea what's going on. Draco then walks into the falls as Bowen's talking to him.

* * *

"Horses, someone's coming." Draco popped his head out of the falls. His acute senses on the alert again, he ducked behind the falls as Bowen suddenly swerved to the sound of the horses approaching. Kara had heard them too as they pounded along the ground, echoing throughout the trees around them. 

"I'll handle this," Bowen told her, "just act nonchalant."

Instead of listening to his instructions, she ran for the opposite shore. She recognized the riders as they emerged from the trees on the bank and they recognized her, it was Einon and his search party. When he saw her running, Einon motioned for two of his riders to pursue her through the creek. They were quickly upon her, and dismounting, one grabbed her and tried to hoist her to his mounted companion. She struggled in the warrior's strong grasp and suddenly felt it slacken. Turning around, she saw him tumbling backwards into the water. Unable to regain her balance, she went with him – he to the ground, she into Bowen's waiting arms.

In one fluid motion, the knight slung her behind him and yanked his sword from the dead warrior to meet the onslaught of the other horseman. Sadly, however, the rider's skill was no match for Bowen's swift blade which slashed across his throat.

"It can't be!" Einon laughed, and Brok at his side, laughed with him. "But it is! The king's old mentor."

It was at that moment that Kara remembered where she had seen Bowen before. He, in a sense, was her knight. The one who had let her escape on the battlefield during the rebellion that killed Einon's father. The one who had defied this king once before to save her and her father. She watched his face harden as he sized Einon up, not liking what he saw. Piglet, as she called him, rode his horse a little ways into the creek while taking the measure of Bowen in return.

"Still giving carving lessons, I see, Bowen," Einon said amiably.

"Get off your horse and I'll give you one," the knight replied.

"I don't know, after all, I'm bigger now. Perhaps I'll give you one instead."

"Stick to slaughtering poor peasants. It's safer." Bowen glared at him.

Einon laughed blackly. "Oh, we don't slaughter them anymore. They just don't seem as capable of paying their taxes when their dead."

"Well then this wench must owe a lot if you've come to fetch her personally."

"Show your future queen more respect!" Einon yelled at Bowen.

Kara knew that her face must have mirrored the knight's startled surprise as he turned to her. Speechless, she could only shake her head in vigorous denial. It was a good enough answer for the knight, who turned back to face Einon.

"The lady seems unwilling." Bowen pointed out.

"I admire her spirit." Einon shrugged.

Kara found her voice. "I'll never wed you, Piglet!" She swore hotly.

Bowen grinned at this statement. "Do you admire her honesty as well?"

"Ask me at the wedding."

"When I go to your wedding," Bowen said, "it will be to make your future wife a widow."

Kara laughed as Einon's pale face flushed with anger for a moment, then his bland smile returned.

"Your manners are as ragged as you attire, Bowen. It seems times have not been kind to you. You should never have broken with me."

"It was you who broke with me." Bowen replied.

Einon idly stroked his chest in somber, and it seemed to Kara, perhaps even regretful remembrance. But he quickly shook off old memories with a twisted smile and unsheathed his sword. Bowen pushed Kara back and tensed with readiness as Einon started to slowly dismount.

"I'm ready for my lesson now, Knight." Einon's foot was still in the stirrup. "But first I'll teach you one!"

He suddenly flung his shield at Bowen. Even as Bowen dodged it Einon was back in the saddle, bearing down on him. The knight deftly rolled from the path of the flailing hooves as Einon charged over him and swooped down on Kara. Before she could flee, he had grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back.

"Don't go too far, sweet. This won't take long." Einon said with a smile.

He leaned down and kissed her ruthlessly on the mouth. As she squirmed from his cruel lips she saw Bowen rise up from the water, Einon's shield in his hands. He slammed it against the king's back, knocking him off his horse.

"Only expose your back to a corpse. That's one lesson you never learned," Bowen jeered at him.

Einon's men started to rush in, but the young king came up shaking off water, eyes flashing.

"Stand back," he ordered Brok and the others, but not before one had hit Bowen in the thigh with an arrow. Wheeling on a grimacing Bowen, Einon smiled manically at him.

"Oh, you _are_ a corpse! You just don't know it yet."

Kara shrank back towards the falls as the two of them engaged, trading fast and furious blows. It was breathtaking to watch, but a warm breath behind her told her that Draco felt it safer if she was behind the sheet of water. Quickly checking that nobody was paying her any attention, she darted through the water and into the dragon's cave.

Bowen held fast. But Einon was younger and more agile.

"Lie down, Knight," Einon pressed him. "Life has passed you by. You're the sorry scrap of a dead world and its dead beliefs."

"They were _your_ beliefs!" The fury in the knight's voice matched the fury of his attack. But Einon met every thrust. It was his words, however, that struck harder than his blows.

"Never! Never mine!" He swore, causing Bowen to falter in his attack.

"They were! You spoke the words! You spoke them from your heart!" Bowen shouted in mad vehemence, but he sounded as though he were trying to shout down the truth.

"I vomited them up because I couldn't stomach them. Because I knew it was what you wanted to hear!" Einon's voice had the harsh grate of the swords' screeching steel.

"Lies!" Bowen gasped, and staggered like an old man. His eyes blurred with wetness. "I taught you..."

"... to fight! That's all." Einon barked.

Kara watched helplessly as he drove Bowen back toward Draco and herself. Toward the falls, and an unbearable truth against which the knight was unable to defend himself.

"I took what I needed from you, Knight. You taught me to fight! And you taught me well!" Einon spat at him.

It was the coup de grace. Bowen seemed dazed, his attack was desperate. Einon dodged his attack, his blade ripping across the shattered knight's gut, turning so he was directly behind him. As he walked around to the front of Bowen's slouched form, he slapped the flat of his blade at the back of Bowen's legs; forcing him onto his knees under the splash of the falls. Panting as Einon approached him, Bowen dropped his sword, too tired to battle on against his former charge.

"Now, the teacher's at the mercy of the student," Einon sneered at him.

Raising his sword, he thrust the blade into the knight's chest, causing him to cry out in pain. Pulling his sword out, Einon smirked as he watched his former mentor collapse in a pool of his own blood that was quickly washed away.

"Red." He said to himself. 'The color my father bled, the hair of the rebel scum who killed him.' He thought as he stood, staring at Bowen's limp body lying on the ground. "Red."

The young king turned quickly on his heel and walked over to where his men waited.

"Come," he said as he mounted his horse, "we will celebrate my victory."

As the group rode off, Draco emerged from behind the waterfall and spotted Bowen, lying on the ground where he had fallen. With the palm of his claw, he gently scooped him up and retreated back into the cave, using his outstretched wing to shield his beaten knight against anymore pain from the pounding waters. Kara ran oven to Bowen as Draco placed him on the ground. She took off his armor to inspect wounds better. The slash to his gut wasn't that bad, she thought.

"I cannot tell for sure since humans are so fragile, how bad is it Kara?" Draco asked her, looking at Bowen's limp form.

"He's lucky the slash to his gut isn't that deep, but it's the chest wound that has me worried." She said. Turning to look up at Draco she added, "if we don't stop the bleeding, he'll die of blood loss."

Returning to her work, she started to rip strips of cloth off the hem of her skirt. She then went over to the front of the cave, sticking her hand out into the pouring water of the falls. She returned with cool, soaked bandages.

"Wait here with him; I'll head out to gather stuff for bandages." Kara said, standing up again and leaving the cave.

Draco just stared down at the knight. He wondered how people could do so much damage to each other, even though they were such fragile creatures themselves. Then again, he mused, some were stronger than others. But poor Bowen, here, was at the end of his prime by the time they started working together. He was no longer the way he used to be, He might still be the greatest swordsman in the kingdom, but he tired out quicker now. Suddenly Draco stare turned into a glare. He taught Einon how to fight, was his mentor, so wasn't he responsible for the young king's terrible deeds? He should have taught him better.

Kara returned with a handful of herbs. She wrapped them in the soaked cloth strips, then asked Draco to heat them up. After placing the poultices on the wounds and securing them there with extra strips of cloth, she sat back and looked at her work. Turning around to face Draco she asked,

"How do you two know each other anyway?"

* * *

Okay, so that was my little story I thought up one night. I thought, 'hmm, maybe this should've been done instead of that'. Oh, and he's not dead. You see, Einon's aim isn't that great, so Bowen's heart wasn't pierced, just a lung. Still hurts like hell though. 


End file.
